Netanyahu Did Not Contact IDF Chief of Staff for 3 Hours After Hamas Attack Began

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not request to speak with the IDF Chief of Staff on the morning of October 7th until a situation assessment at 9:45 AM, according to a report by Kan News on Thursday. Even after the Hamas attack commenced and the Prime Minister received two phone calls at 6:29 AM and 6:40 AM, Netanyahu did not ask to speak with the Chief of Staff. The first known conversation between them reportedly occurred later that morning during the situation assessment.

This report emerges two days after Netanyahu claimed in a social media video that senior security officials decided not to wake him during the night, fearing an Israeli response would escalate conflict with Hamas. In the video, Netanyahu read from a protocol he stated included a request from former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar to maintain "secret moderate alert, so as not to create miscalculation." According to the document, it also stated, "For now, avoid broad activity."

Netanyahu asserted that the Chief of Staff, the Shin Bet chief, and the head of Military Intelligence feared that waking him would lead him to order an operation that would result in a confrontation with Hamas, which they believed was deterred at the time. "They feared that if they woke the Prime Minister, I would activate the Air Force, and wake up the entire IDF, and not let anyone approach the fences, because we would kill them immediately," Netanyahu said. "If they had woken me, everything would have looked different," he concluded.